ATMOSPHERIC Physicist, MIT Professor of Meteorology and former IPCC lead author Richard S. Lindzen, examines the politics and ideology behind the CO2-centricity that beleaguers the man-made climate change agenda. His summary goes to the very heart of why Carbon Dioxide has become the centre-piece of the ‘global’ climate debate:

“For a lot of people including the bureaucracy in Government and the environmental movement, the issue is power. It’s hard to imagine a better leverage point than carbon dioxide to assume control over a society. It’s essential to the production of energy, it’s essential to breathing. If you demonise it and gain control over it, you so-to-speak, control everything. That’s attractive to people. It’s been openly stated for over forty years that one should try to use this issue for a variety of purposes, ranging from North/South redistribution, to energy independence, to God knows what…”

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“CO2 for different people has different attractions. After all, what is it? – it’s not a pollutant, it’s a product of every living creature’s breathing, it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis, it’s a product of all industrial burning, it’s a product of driving – I mean, if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.”

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Lindzen discusses the state of the climate change debate, the lack of evidence for catastrophic warming and what the science really tells us.

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UPDATE

Climate Science Exploited for Political Agenda, According to Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Climatism or global warming alarmism is the most prominent recent example of science being coopted to serve a political agenda, writes Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the in the fall 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He compares it to past examples: Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, and the eugenics movement.

Lindzen describes the Iron Triangle and the Iron Rice Bowl, in which ambiguous statements by scientists are translated into alarmist statements by media and advocacy groups, influencing politicians to feed more money to the acquiescent scientists.

In consequence, he writes, “A profound dumbing down of the discussion…interacts with the ascendancy of incompetents.” Prizes and accolades are awarded for politically correct statements, even if they defy logic. “Unfortunately, this also often induces better scientists to join the pack in order to preserve their status,” Lindzen adds. Keep Reading »

It’s amazing that minuscule bacteria can cause life-threatening diseases and infections –- and miraculous that tiny doses of vaccines and antibiotics can safeguard us against these deadly scourges. It is equally incredible that, at the planetary level, carbon dioxide is a miracle molecule for plants -– and the “gas of life” for most living creatures on Earth.

In units of volume, CO2’s concentration is typically presented as 400 parts per million (400 ppm). Translated, that’s just 0.04% of Earth’s atmosphere -– the equivalent of 40 cents out of one thousand dollars, or 1.4 inches on a football field. Even atmospheric argon is 23 times more abundant: 9,300 ppm. Moreover, the 400 ppm in 2013 is 120 ppm more than the 280 ppm carbon dioxide level of 1800, and that two-century increase is equivalent to a mere 12 cents out of $1,000, or one half-inch on a football field.

Eliminate carbon dioxide, and terrestrial plants would die, as would lake and ocean phytoplankton, grasses, kelp and other water plants. After that, animal and human life would disappear. Even reducing CO2 levels too much – back to pre-industrial levels, for example – would have terrible consequences. Continue Reading »